In this article

Keith Mayer delivers today's post in our VMware or Microsoft series. Keith titled his post as “at-a-glance” but what he is really doing is a great, in depth comparison of features and technologies between vSphere 5.5 and Windows Server 2012. Here is an excerpt from his blog -

There’s been lots of buzz on the enterprise hypervisor front over the past month … In August, Microsoft announced the RTM version ofWindows Server 2012 R2andSystem Center 2012 R2, the latest major releases of the Windows Server and System Center families. In addition, at VMworld this year, VMware announced the latest edition of their vSphere hypervisor platform:VMware vSphere 5.5.

IT Pros have been very interested in learning about the pros and cons presented by each offering – particularly because the total cost of Windows Server 2012 R2 + System Center 2012 R2 can be quite attractive in comparison to VMware’s offerings.

More information: SeeShopping for Private Cloudsfor a sample cost comparison between Microsoft and VMware virtualization solutions based on real-world requirements.

With so many features called by differing names in each virtualization platform, comparing Microsoft and VMware virtualization solutions can sometimes seem a bit like comparing apples and oranges. But, I’ll try to boil things down to a real-world perspective based on my experience implementing both solutions in the field throughout my career. In this article, I’ll provide a summarized comparison of the enterprise virtualization feature sets provided by each of these latest releases using the currently available public information from bothMicrosoftandVMwareas of this article’s publication date.

How to compare?

Rather than simply comparing feature-by-feature using just simple check-marks in each category, I’ll try to provide as much detail as possible for you to intelligently compare each area. As I’m sure you’ve heard before, sometimes the “devil is in the details”.

For each comparison area, I’ll rate the area with the following color code:

Green – Fully supported without any additional products or licenses

Amber – Supported, but has significant limitations or limitations in comparison to competing solutions

Red – Not supported at all or without the addition of other product licensing costs

In this article, I’ve organized the comparison into the following sections: